RAGING FAN

By RICHARD SCHICKEL

Robert De Niro is our designated stalker, psycho of choice to the age of lumpen paranoia. Since he offers his fourth version of this character in The Fan, it's obvious that he's not yet tired of the furnished rooms, Wal-Mart wardrobes and frayed synapses that marked his darkly defining work in Taxi Driver, The King of Comedy and Cape Fear. A more objective observer, however, can't help thinking this game should be called on account of deja vu.

The makers of The Fan seem to be aware of the problem. So the screenplay (by Phoef Sutton) gives De Niro's character, Gil Renard, a novel fixation for his volatile blend of admiration and envy--a baseball star named Bobby Rayburn (Wesley Snipes). The Fan also provides De Niro with good, carefully outlined reasons for spinning out of control: Gil loses his job, and his ex-wife obtains a court order preventing him from seeing their son on the grounds that Gil is both too intense and too careless. There's even a back story that explains why Gil is so obsessed with baseball: seems his happiest days occurred when he was a lad leading his Little League team to a championship. For a while one cringes sympathetically at a simple man's simple attempts to displace and discharge overwhelming, yet recognizable emotions.

But then Gil commits a violent crime (he thinks it will help Bobby shake a batting slump) and abducts the ballplayer's son (he also thinks the man needs a lesson in humility). Since these plot twists exceed any motivations offered, De Niro's performance begins to seem more a matter of well-practiced gestures than real conviction, and the long, silly finale more an exercise in empty panache by director Tony Scott than a truly gripping suspense piece involving people we care about.

--By Richard Schickel